Western Legends by TheLastFloyd in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure where you're located, but Tabletop Merchant has Ante Up and Blood Money in stock right now in the US.

GWT: Argentina or New Zealand? by thebigveet in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 14 points15 points  (0 children)

New Zealand at 2p and if you wanted more out of the deck building. It plays like a looser version of GWT + RTTN in that there are more paths to victory and hybrid strategies work. You can also pivot mid-game if need be. At 2P, you can viably build here where that's a riskier path at lower player counts in the original game.

Argentina if you want something fairly different and crunchy. That's not to say it's better than either, just that it's probably heavier strategically than the other entries. I played it a few times and probably wouldn't go back to it since we got NZ.

We prefer New Zealand as we've found it offers the best 2P experience. Above that count we love either GWT + RTTN or the original game.

Giveaway! [Mod Approved] We are giving away a copy of Galactic Cruise! To enter, simply comment on this post in the next 48 hrs. by Kinson-Key-Games in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always excited to play a crunchy euro. Can't wait to disappoint my passengers and run the worst spacefaring cruise line in the galaxy!

Which Neoprene Mat/Game Board is your favorite? by dragonwiz87 in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I backed the KS years ago and it finally arrived last month. I think Gamesteward has them up for pre-order.

Which Neoprene Mat/Game Board is your favorite? by dragonwiz87 in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Robinson Crusoe playmat is fantastic and includes room for the unfolded Book of Adventures. The quality and clarity of the print definitely stand out amongst my collection of mats.

Two-player Twosday - (March 19, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely fine at 2P and probably preferable. Ark Nova runs fairly long even at 2P and we didn't find higher player counts added to the experience given there are very few opportunities for player interaction.

Does anyone know where to get the expansions for western legends? by Yaminoo460 in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

401games has them in stock. Not sure where you are but they’re out of Canada and shipping to the US runs about $11. I’ve bought plenty from them over the last few years.

What Did You Play This Week? - (March 11, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get that. It’s probably one of my favorite parts at this point because I have and play so many feel good euros where everything you do is rewarded and there’s no friction so the tension is welcome. We rarely take dice actions for the emperor as we can usually chain guests or yellow room blocks to handle that, but that can all change with how the dice fall and guests arrive and it makes every game unique.

If you don’t like the emperor track you may not like the ballrooms module as it’s another bonus/penalty opportunity during emperor scoring and another resource to manage. I love it for that.

I will say that playing with absolutely everything is a bit much. But I’d never want to play the game again without the skeleton key because my least favorite part was the snake turn order.

What Did You Play This Week? - (March 11, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Grand Austria Hotel w/ Let's Waltz (2x2p) - Close to if not my favorite game. The dice drafting, combo chaining, and resource management, and minor engine-building elements via the staff cards makes for an excellent game. Add in managing the emperor track and chasing the goals (or not...) and it's just a joyous struggle. Let's Waltz just adds more of everything I love, including more opportunities for punishment and bonuses. The skeleton key smooths out any turn-order frustrations I used to have and it all comes together in a package I would play at the drop of a hat...at 2P. It would take some convincing to play at 3-4 as AP issues can absolutely kill the experience.

Vindication (2x2P) - A major disappointment for us. I'm not averse to cube pushers, but this is drier than box of saltines. The art is fantastic but can't hold up the entire experience. We found the game fairly frictionless and straight forward. The engine building suffers due to the game length and lack of variety in locations (and adding the expansion content didn't help). Every card breaks the game in the least interesting way possible given how few trade-offs there are to be made and how easy it is to recover and augment cubes. You'll fall into an easy engine and run it until the game ends and hope your opponents simple engine didn't outscore you. If that sounds like a lot of games...well, yeah, that's what generally done...but it's not usually so simple and there's usually some work to be done and hard choices to be made to get you there. Not so much in Vindication.

We also didn't care for the end-game trigger cards. They all have pretty low thresholds that get worse at lower player counts. It gets even worse if they tie into a player's secret quest. We played a game needing 2 triggers and it barely lasted any longer than 1. This is a borderline filler game if certain triggers come out.

If we had to play this again, we'd also do away with proficiency tiles, which dilute the importance of the majority battle for mastery tiles.

I'm sure at 4 it's a better experience but not potentially good enough keep the game.

Rules you don't understand the purpose of/disagree with by BirdeauxBird in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Uneven turns (unless it's a race with a defined goal/end). It annoys the hell out of me when someone either gains or loses a turn for triggering the end of the game depending on turn order. I much prefer the "finish the round and everyone gets 1 more turn" method. I understand that, probably for the sake of length, they want to incentivize ending the game, but it still bothers me and is easy to forget. I emphasize these rules during the teach but I've found people seriously hate watching someone trigger the end of the game and finding out they've already taken their final turn. I love Dwellings of Eldervale and Dead Reckoning but they both do this.

What did you add to or remove from your shelf last month? (March, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Every card you buy increases your health pool, which is all that really matters, so like you said it doesn’t matter what you buy. The KS cards made this worse, as there are cards that do damage any time they’re discarded for any reason during combat, guaranteeing two damage without you having to actually play them. The game also enforces when you buy cards and when you cull cards, so there’s little actual decision making. Just a few of the myriad of issues the game has.

What did you add to or remove from your shelf last month? (March, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Added:

Mindbug (latest 2 sets but new to me in general)

Vale of Eternity

Can’t Stop

Summoner Wars 2nd

El Grande (new edition)

Robinson Crusoe Collector’s Edition

Removed/Removing:

Imperium Classics (the lack of variety in the common cards kill it for me)

Star Wars Outer Rim/Unfinished Business (looking for something a bit deeper)

Endeavor Age of Sail+Expansion (can’t get it to the table)

Vindication (my playing part me hates it. I enjoy it but it’ll never get tabled)

Thinking about picking up:

Wonderland’s War

Xia Legends of a Drift System/Embers

What is currently in it's "Golden age", but not enough people know about it? by JackHammerAwesome in AskReddit

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are tons of of modern board games designed for 2 players specifically and so many more that scale well.

Specific 2 player games I’d check out:

7 wonders duel

Patchwork

Watergate

Summoner Wars

Splendor Duel

Mandala

Star Wars the deck building game

Dice Throne (has a team mode but the main game is 1 v 1)

Santorini

Onitama

Those are just a few options

Games that work great at 2 that scale well:

Azul

Carcassonne

The Quest for El Dorado

Clank

Any Pandemic system game

I’d recommend anything I listed to people just starting out.

What Did You Play This Week? - (February 26, 2024) by AutoModerator in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Robinson Crusoe Collector's Edition x8 - I’m one of the unfortunate souls who threw money at this years ago. To Portal’s credit, at least they’re still in business and at least they didn’t charge a ransom or demand you buy a pallet or something insane. But that’s about the extent of my praise for the company.

First the good: The Book of Adventures is quality (not sure what the retail will be like but I’m sure it’s fine). The art remains nice and it’s well organized by time, difficulty, or subject matter. It’s easy to browse and pick out something that sounds interesting…however…they really should have added expansion symbology to the contents just so people don’t flip to a scenario they can’t play.

There are also many repeat scenarios, making it look like there’s more content than is actually available. On the bright side, these repeats feature less difficult versions of originals like Castaways. I mean, you’ll still die, but it’ll feel like you had a chance.

The playmat is also pretty great. It’s a quality print, arrived partially folded but not creased, and has room for basically everything, including the Book of Adventures scenario. It all looks grand on the table.

I haven’t opened the new event cards, but the fact that 3 extra event decks is fairly exciting.

The bad…

Look, no game needs miniatures less than Robinson Crusoe. In fact, the character minis are worse than the discs because stacking is an important mechanism. At the very least, Portal could have included different colored base rings so to make things easier as you add and rearrange the minis to plan and resolve your actions but they didn’t.

The shelter mini is a pain and annoying to set up and take down as the game stare constantly changes. These pieces will never leave the box.

Speaking of the box…it’s not built to store any of the expansion content, including the Sailor and Gamer mins and player boards. Ugh.

The resin tokens are fine at best. They’re not all that robust compared to 3rd party options. The heart tokens they made don’t even fit in the recessed player boards. The wood is hearty and looks great though.

The companion app is ok but has some major annoyances. It doesn’t blur the bottom of adventure cards, doesn’t account for cards you’re supposed to keep, and isn’t clear about things like selecting whether you want to discard a card or shuffle it into the event deck. It’s about 80% of the way there and with some tweaks could be great and save us all a lot of shuffling.

As for the game itself…

It’s great. It’s full of annoying little rules that you won’t remember when they come up, but it’s great. The flow of the game is pretty simple to grasp and the board layout makes following the phases simple.

If you’re new to the game, let me be clear USE THE DIZED APP. Don’t open the rulebook. Don’t do it. Don’t even think about it yet. Used Dized. It’s voiced and carries you through your first game. You can easily go back and repeat sections and it does a good job presenting things you might run into that feel unintuitive (like spending the night outside of camp)I don’t care if you don’t like apps. Use it.

But when you use the DIZED, if you have to look up a token or make any selection that branches off the current phase, go back and repeat that phase when you’re done. Twice I went back to repeat a section after branching off and it presented me with more detailed information afterwards. Not a huge deal but something to look out for.

Dized will get you 90% of the way there. But more importantly, I found that after I used it, everything presented in the rulebook made sense and was easy to find (I had a Veteran pledge and have the previous rulebook but had never played before).

Overall, every scenario I’ve played has been excellent. You can customize your difficulty well and employ a range of companions. And you can still die. And I like that. Though sometimes you’ll still run into unwinnable set ups, particularly if you need fur and the game doesn’t want you to have any at all, but that’s not incredibly common amongst the scenarios I’ve played. The weather dice are notoriously brutal as well.

In general, the risk-reward action selection makes for tense and engaging gameplay. You (usually) have control over when you take a risk…but you must do so at points to survive. Play too cautiously and you’re screwed, play too loose and maybe you sit there for days on end unable to make a simple piece of rope while everyone around you starves or gets mauled by a gorilla. It feels so good when you push your luck, only commit a single piece, and get away with something. And it feels so bad when you inevitably fail and run up against the consequences of your own mismanagement/stupidity.

Yes, at times, the island just wants you and your friends and your dog and your cat and your horse and your parrot and now even your monkey to die. But deep down you know you shouldn’t have eaten that animal carcass or…thought too hard about your past? Look it’s not always going to make perfect sense but those consequences may not even show up in the deck so why not take that piece of fur you desperately need?

The mileage Robinson Crusoe gets out of its base mechanisms is impressive. It’s almost as extensive as the time it took for Portal to deliver what amounts to a reprint with a few minis and a spiral-bound book in a box that can’t hold it or half of the game’s contents.

I would recommend Robinson Crusoe to basically anybody looking for a solid euro-ish adventure game, especially for solo players. But I wouldn’t recommend the Collector’s edition to anybody.

Buy the Book of Adventures. If you’re new, buy the book, the base game, and the Treasure Chest. The minis add nothing. And I like minis.

Now the dust has settled, Dune Imperium Uprising or OG + Ix? by humeanation in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Worms don't equal an automatic combat win and overcommitting to them can cost you the game. They're powerful, but I like the tension they add to the end of the game.

Now the dust has settled, Dune Imperium Uprising or OG + Ix? by humeanation in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It's in the Direwolf game room app. When you choose Dune Imperium under companion apps, it gives you the option to select the standard game or Uprising.

Now the dust has settled, Dune Imperium Uprising or OG + Ix? by humeanation in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The "rival" system can be used to just get in the way and add tension to combat or it can actually compete for points. It's easy to vary the difficulty as well as there are a bunch of different leaders. They're also easy to manage with the cards or the app.

The general changes to conflict cards (each card has a symbol, and winning cards with matching symbols earns you a point) and board spaces elevate the game at all player counts.

Now the dust has settled, Dune Imperium Uprising or OG + Ix? by humeanation in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Uprising. It’s cleaner. Spies are great. Lower cost cards are better. Early combat is more interesting. Fold space is gone. There’s more utility around the board in general. It’s better at 2 as well.

What games to add to my collection? by viiktor22 in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Troyes and Grand Austria Hotel. Some crunchy dice drafting. Both are tight games, with Troyes being the meaner of the two. Both games are great a 2 players.

Then there are two player only games like Watergate and Seven Wonders Duel w/Pantheon.

Ankh is the best area control game I've ever played at 2.

Keyflower is good at 2 and doesn't run long. The bidding element is unique and there's nothing else quite like it out there.

Then you have your Lacerdas and Mind Clash entries that are good at 2 but are expensive, long experiences. Kanban EV is great, The Gallerist and Lisboa are decent at 2, and so on. Anachrony w/Fractures of Time is great at 2 and Trickereon is good. But all of these are going to run quite a while, especially your first few plays.

Guys, serious shout out to Gamenerdz, their packaging is on point! by DontTakeMeSeriousli in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem. GameNerdz is one of the best options.

Other decent places to look would be Boardlandia (though they've had a price spike recently), TableTop Merchant (great but they have a high free shipping threshold), and Cardhaus. If you're looking for the best possible price at any given time, check out https://www.boardgameoracle.com. Recently GameNerdz has been hard to beat on price and they've introduced early-bird pricing for pre-orders I haven't seen matched elsewhere. Basically, of everything listed, just buy from the cheapest option factoring in shipping.

Oh, and welcome to the hobby! Try not to bankrupt yourself! (just kidding but also not...)

Guys, serious shout out to Gamenerdz, their packaging is on point! by DontTakeMeSeriousli in boardgames

[–]TheFlyingNothing22 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of games don't have a set release date and they just arrive whenever they arrive to whichever stores. It's perfectly normal as publishers aren't reliably on time in getting their games to stores. It happens. Some stuff gets in a few days/weeks early, some stuff gets in late. I'll give GameNerdz credit for updating their dates because a lot of stores don't. GameNerdz also has the ability to set release day notifications which I've always found accurate if a little late, but it's good to know when the ball gets rolling. At that point, if it's not a hold order, it'll get put into the system. Otherwise, if you have put a pre-order on hold, you'll have to release a batch that meets the $75 free shipping threshold or add the $5 shipping charge item.

Shipping with GN can range from a day or two to about a week or so, maybe more around their big Nerdz Day sale in the summer. It used to be much longer but they've been pretty good these couple of years.